


Better Than Nothing

by Buffintruder



Category: Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard - Rick Riordan, RIORDAN Rick - Works
Genre: Fluff, Gender Dysphoria, Other, Pre-Relationship, not entirely canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 13:36:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14165997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buffintruder/pseuds/Buffintruder
Summary: Magnus gives Alex a thoughtful gift





	Better Than Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> For trans day of visibility!  
> Set sometime before the third book.

Being the daughter of Loki had its benefits. Not as many as there were disadvantages, it was true, but there were some. For Alex, the biggest one was her shape shifting. She loved the fluidity of her form and the way she could be almost anything at any time

 

Despite this freedom, there were some restrictions on this power. Although she could take the shape of any animal she wanted, she could only take the forms of animals, no plants or objects. Alex also couldn’t take on the shape of any other sentient beings. This meant that she wouldn’t be able to make herself look like a specific person, but it also meant that she couldn’t make herself a giant or have blond hair or anything.

 

On the days when Alex was a girl, she couldn’t make herself look any more feminine with her shapeshifting abilities. Some days, it was okay. She preferred to look more androgynous than feminine, no matter what her gender really was that day.

 

But some days were worse. Sometimes, she was tired of people making assumptions on her gender, and wished that she could shift some of her facial features or give herself a bit of a chest. Not any huge changes, but just enough that a stranger might be more likely to assume she was a slightly masculine cis woman.

 

There were also times that she felt physically dysphoric in a way that had more to do with her actual body than others perceptions of it, but that was much easier to solve. She had a large repertoire of other shapes at her disposal, after all. It didn’t solve the problem in the long term, but it at least made the deep uncomfortableness go away while it was happening.

 

Today was one of those times. Alex woke up in her bedroom in Valhalla, feeling like a stranger in her own body. It felt like something foreign, some place she didn’t belong, and she needed to get out.

 

So she did.

 

As easily as she had ever done anything, Alex turned into a hawk. The times that she felt dysphoric, it felt uncomfortably like being trapped. The freedom flying gave her counteracted that, in a way. She wasn’t quite awake enough to fly much at the moment, but being a hawk still gave her a sort of comfort. She flapped her way up to one of the branches of the tree in the center of her room and perched there while she waited for her dysphoria to fade.

 

It wasn’t exactly a peaceful rest. With the end of the world approaching, Alex had a lot to be preoccupied by. It wasn’t hard to lose herself in various anxieties and plans and hopes. She didn’t know how much time passed before someone knocked on her door.

 

“Alex?” Magnus’s muffled voice came in through the wood.

 

With a sigh, Alex flew back down to the ground and shifted into her human form. She quickly threw a pink and green checkered sweater over her pajama shirt so that she was at least partially dressed. Magnus knocked and called out her name again.

 

She wrenched the door open. “What do you want?”

 

“Uh,” Magnus said eloquently. “We’re having Breakfast to the Death in the main hall in a few minutes, and the rest of floor 19 seemed really determined to win this time. I thought I should come and get you before you miss it and they decide to blame their defeat on you.”

 

“They think I’m that important to their victory?” Alex asked.

 

Magnus shrugged. “ _ I  _ think you are.” He blushed. “Er, because you’re very terrifying. You decapitated me the first day we met.”

 

“I remember that.” Alex smiled viciously at him, receiving a satisfying gulp in response. “I’ll be down there in a moment.” She began to close the door. Even if a battle to the death wouldn’t drive away her dysphoria, she could at least take out her frustration on a bunch of other einherjar.

 

“Wait!” Magnus said before she could shut the door.

 

Alex paused.

 

“I also, um. I wanted to give you something.”

 

Alex raised an eyebrow.

 

“I was in Arts and Crafts yesterday, and I was thinking about you. About something you said, I mean, back in my uncle’s house. You said you don’t use they/them pronouns because they don’t fit you, and it wasn’t up to you to make things convenient for other people, and you’re absolutely right, but—”

 

“I know what I said,” Alex said a little testily. She was mildly wary about where Magnus was going with this, but she mostly she was just confused and wanted him to get to the point. “You can stop rambling.”

 

“Right.” Magnus straightened himself. “Sorry. Anyway, I was thinking that it can’t be convenient for  _ you _ to always be updating people on what pronouns they should use for you, so I made this bracelet.” He held up a green band, about a centimeter thick. Alex could see that the inside of it was pink. “It’s double-sided.” Magnus twisted the band, flipping it inside out so that the pink side was on the outside. “You can just tell people what set of pronouns each side corresponds to, that way you don’t have to actually say what your pronouns are every time you see them.”

 

Alex stared at him. This hadn’t been what she was expecting.

 

Under her stare, Magnus fidgeted. “I—I’m sorry if I overstepped. You don’t have to use it or anything, I just thought that it might be something you might like. Never mind.” He looked mortified. “I’ll just, uh, go now.”

 

Alex made a snap decision. “No! I’ll take that.” She grabbed the purple and green band from Magnus’s hand.

 

Magnus froze.

 

“Thanks,” Alex said, with maybe a bit more emotion than she had meant to put into that word. She put the band on her wrist, the green side facing up. Magnus had even been considerate enough to choose her two favorite colors for the band, instead of the stereotypical blue and pink. “I love it.”

 

“Good!” Magnus said, his face breaking into a rather adorable grin.

 

“Green is female, pink is male.”

 

“Got it.” Magnus gave her an awkward double thumbs up.

 

“I gotta grab my garrote and shoes, and then I’ll be down there with the rest of our floor.”

 

“Okay! See you!” Magnus said before walking quickly away. Alex saw him breathe a sigh of relief before she closed the door.

 

Alex finished getting fully dressed and gathered her weapons and armor. Her mind was still stuck on the band that Magnus had given her. It was kind of sweet that he’d been thinking about her enough to come up with something that might improve her life. The band wasn’t going to solve all of her problems, and it wouldn’t get strangers to see her any differently, but it would also be a short hand on her gender to the people that knew her better. 

 

Halfborn, for instance, asked her fairly frequently if she was currently a boy. In a way, it was understandable since she had told everybody to use she/her pronouns unless she stated otherwise, and if he wanted to be sure, that would be the question to ask. But it was also annoying because Alex  _ would tell him _ if she wasn’t a girl. 

 

With this, there wouldn’t be any need to constantly update people every time her gender shifted. If she forgot to tell someone her current gender, she wouldn’t have to deal with being misgendered. 

 

The band wasn’t everything, but it did mean something, and that was better than nothing.


End file.
